Pondering "sober curious" movement after a weekend in Athens, Ohio

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I was this weekend the focus of on odd male custom where men who love you most and think you’re going to die in, say, 5 years, gather to engage in the wanton misbehaviors that could kill you in 2 nights.

I survived and made it home where I’m loved by even sober folk.

The weekend reinforces my contention that my popularity with any group surges in direct correlation to how much alcohol they’ve consumed. 

So if you think this blog is off to a slow start, why don’t you stop here for a moment and go take big slug of hootch to loosen up. I’ll wait.

There. You back? Feel better? 

If it puts you at ease, I had one, too.

Okay, I’m lying.

I had two!

Have you heard about the new sober curious movement? It says people are sick of drinking and are thoughtfully considering what it would be like going out without spending the night drinking beer, wine or strong liquor.

Well, I know exactly what that would be like. 

It’d be like staying home!

Really, I’ll not disparage. I can see alternatives to intoxication working for a lot of people, albeit not for people who make their living keeping many of us tipsy.

Excessive drink, I know, is the ruin of many well-intentioned adults. But so is excessive sobriety. As H.L. Mencken once said: “All the great villainies of history, from Abel to the Treaty of Versailles, have been perpetuated by sober men, chiefly by teetotalers.”

I’m curious how different my life would be had I chosen a sober path. For starters, my lawn today would appear tidier because I wouldn’t have spent the weekend in Athens, Ohio, still after all these years the Drinker’s Disneyland. And my life, I believe, would be emptier without all those vital friendships and raucous memories.

Being back in Athens with a dozen old buddies reminds me how essential my time there was to me. It’s where I became who I am.

Times were different — and I tried without success to impose a penalty shot anytime anyone said, “Boy it’s a good thing there weren’t camera phones when we were here!”

I felt more melancholy than I’ve ever felt in fun circumstances because, indeed, I was the focus of the weekend. Many of my friends came long distances to wish me well. My Parkinson’s diagnosis is bumming my old buddies out. That bums me out. 

I told them I’m fine — and I am — but I realize how upsetting it is when you see something once so vital, so alive — me and you at 19 — showing signs of encroaching mortality. 

Where I once ran naked, I now limp fully clothed.

Still, I should have done something to lift everyone’s spirits, something that would have yielded at least one new story we can tell over and over years from now — and new stories should be the goal of any gathering among old men being stalked by nostalgia.

So next time it’ll be up to me to either swim naked in the hotel pool, pee on a cop’s foot or try and sleep with Miss Benson, that hot history prof, who is by now either 80 or dead — either of which would make a good story.

And that’s another problem I have with the whole sober curious bit.

I mean, really. Where are you going to find a sober guy daring enough to pee on the cop’s foot to liven things up at last call in Athens when the boys are getting bored?

Related ….

Do friendships extend lives?

Back when drinking ouzo always made my pants disappear

No.1 Party Boy from No 1 Party school

My #MeToo moment in ’85, Athens, Ohio

Back behind bars

My wild & wussy weekend

My career advice: don't be like me!

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Yesterday was one of those days when the hopes of optimistic college students eager to become career freelance writers were crushed when my most emphatic advice to college students eager to become freelance writers is to become plumbers.

I’ve been thinking for the last two months about writing a post headlined, “The Great Chris Rodell Life Experiment Fail.”

I’ve decided against that because it’s too depressing, in my heart I don’t believe it’s true and because it drives me nuts whenever headlines are too long to fit on one tidy line.

Yesterday I was back at Ohio University. Back in Athens, a place where so many of the characteristics that make me me — binge drinker, deadline shirker, chronic napper — were forged for my duration.

I revel in being back in Athens. I get roaring drunk with old friends, laugh too loud, and am renown for cranking out really huge farts at inappropriate times.

The people in charge of Athens know this so whenever they want me to talk to their students they insist I do it via Skype and far downwind.

And what I wrote about my feelings of failure is bullseye true. I’ve lately been at a really low ebb.

I do feel like a failure. My credit card bills are at an all-time high. I needed to buy lots of books at the end of the year in order to have lots of books to sell this year. I shelled out substantial bucks to join professional organizations that promise to help me land lucrative speaking gigs.

Those are not frivolous expenses. They are necessary.

What is frivolous and unnecessary is all the money I spend on cigars, bars, golf and baseball and right now all those soulful recreations are in jeopardy.

The last time I went a whole summer without any of those elements in my life it was the interim months between the 3rd and 4th grades.

The Stones are coming to Pittsburgh June 20. I’m deluged with questions from friends about my plans. Where will I stay? Do I have any ticket deals? How many cities will I see them in?

All are incredulous when I tell them I just can’t afford it.

I keep thinking I’m on the verge of some enormous professional breakthrough that will catapult me to real success.

I tell the students I’ve been saying that very same thing every morning since I quit my last real job way back in 1992.

The students are interested in the blog. They want to know how I make money on it.

I tell them I don’t. Friends urged me to put up a donation app and assured me support would pour in.

In fact, I say, in the four months the app’s been up, I’ve received exactly $102 in donations. One exuberant supporter — the one who urged me to put the dang thing up — bless his heart, gave $100. The other $2 came from when I snuck onto my wife’s computer and made a sneak transaction on her account to make sure the app was functioning.

“And she made me pay the $2 back!”

I’m nervous as the Skype session progresses. I feel like I’m in a race against the clock to see the class end before Val gets home and usurps the screen to rail against my many miserable failings.

I know most days she’d rather be married to a handsome plumber. 

I can’t blame her. Hell, there are days when I’D rather be married to a handsome plumber.

Any fresh household catastrophe could ruin us. Same goes for car trouble or if my 6-year-old MacBook Pro goes dark.

It never bothered me that freelance writing would be a career high wire act. I just never dreamed the wire would get so high.

What drives me mental, too, is all the people to whom I go to for advice say I just need to keep doing what I’m doing.

“You’re doing everything right,” said one successful writer. “You have no idea just how close you are to it all coming together for you. Just stick with it.”

Stick with what? Sleeplessness? Bouts of depression? Chronic feelings of failure?

I’ve long said it’s not surprising writers like me drink. What’s surprising is writers like me ever stop drinking.

What’s also insane is my persistent optimism that friends are correct. Meeting planners around the country are receptive to my pitches.

They believe my message — in essence, to cheerfully persist through every hardship — is one all their associates need to hear.

And financial stability is the only element missing from what is a truly wonderful life.

I was reminded of this when at the very end one of the students asked what my daughters think about what their Daddy does.

“They love it,” I say. “And they love me.”

It’s true. We have so many happy times together. Ages 14 and 8, they both have made expressions that they’re proud of me and the book. Josie says many of her friends have read copies their parents have bought and have told her they love it.

“I’d have missed out on a world of love if I’d have followed a different path and it’s cliche, but no one on their deathbed’s ever said they wished they’d have had more bylines in Golf Magazine.”

Of all the things I said, it’s the one thing I hope that sticks.

So today, the day after the 150th anniversary Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, I am once again Scarlett O’Hara saying, fiddle-dee-dee, I won’t think about even crushing defeat.

Tomorrow’s another day

I will yet again raise my middle finger to looming despair and believe in my heart that a better day is soon to dawn.

I may never enjoy the means and stability of a really fine plumber, but as God is my witness, I’ll one day be able to afford one.

Related . . .

The No. 1 Party Boy from the No. 1 Party School

An exercise in ironic education

My novel frustrations

Best picture? It’s “Gone with the Wind”

Roll on, Stones

My business plan: Keep on feeding the unicorn

My wild and wussy weekend

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I can always tell when I do something that disappoints my friends my wife will be elated and vice versa. It’s very difficult for a convivial family man to do anything simultaneously satisfying to both demographics.

So this weekend was in some ways sort of a wash for me.

On the downside I disappointed my friend. On the upside, I avoided being murdered by someone who 25 years ago swore he’d kill me if I ever behaved in the wussy way I behaved on Saturday night.

Friday night I stayed up partying until 6 a.m. at my buddy Quinn’s new bar in Columbus.

Quinn’s had a terrible year. His wife left him shortly after he learned his mom had terminal cancer; she passed six months later. It was two years after the death of the step-father who raised him.

Me, I had a much better year.

My buddy Quinn opened a new bar!

I know, it’s not like I need yet another bar-owner friend to inebriate me for free, but it’s unwise to maintain some commodities in quantities fewer than one.

It’s why people keep spare tires in their trunks.

His last bar was Andyman’s Tree House, which he and co-owner Andy Davis sold in '08, shortly before Davis died unexpectedly in 2010. That bar was named by Esquire as one of the 50 best bars in America.

I think Little Rock is even better.

Why is a bar in the state capital of Ohio named like a city that is the state capital of Arkansas? 

Because every great bar needs at least a Little Rock.

And rock it does.

See, Quinn’s also the singer/songwriter who cryptically named his band Los Gravediggers. His bandmates have included Dan Baird of the Georgia Satellites and Bobby Keys of the Rolling Stones. Quinn's the best songwriter I know and among the best songwriters I’ve ever heard.

He’s that good and it’s a confounding disappointment in a world awash in so much lousy music that Quinn’s music struggles to be heard.

And he’s very funny. When he learned former Hootie Darius Rucker was going to switch genres to country he suggested he be called “Brocephus,” which I’ll not explain save to say it’s an off-color country music joke about a man of color.

We were roommates for one year in college when I was in the midst of a 10-year heyday for running wild. Often running wild and naked.

Quinn and our buddies loved that part of me. That’s from whence the murder threat stemmed. I remember him telling me the night after some vivid antics that he and another friend were discussing what then was my legend.

“We said, ‘What are we going to do if Rodell ever changes?’ We decided we’d have to kill you. We wouldn’t be able to stand being in a world where you’d disappoint us by behaving like a normal, boring guy.”

We stayed up drinking in Little Rock straight through until 6 a.m. I laughed myself hoarse.

I was pleased that after all these years of waking up at 6 a.m., I could still when duty called stay awake until that time.

But — and I’m not ashamed to admit it — the revelry turned me into a boring old man by Saturday afternoon. I was eager to get home. It was causing me to reconsider our plans to drive to Athens and meet some other old Ohio University friends and again drink the night away.

And I’m at an age where I don’t belong in many of the bars in Athens. To spend a night amidst a mob of binge drinkers 30 years younger than me requires a kind of cool I can no longer summon.

After about four hours, I told Quinn I’d had enough. I’d be walking back to the hotel at 11 p.m. I told him I didn’t want to be wrecked all day Sunday and that I was looking forward to spending the day with my family.

He looked like presidential candidates must look the instant they’re told, despite all the rosy poll results, they’ve lost the election. He was crestfallen. He demanded a recount.

He couldn’t understand how I could want to do anything with my family when I had an opportunity to again get falling down drunk with him and our pals. I told him I planned on being on the road by 7 a.m. 

“Why so damn early?”

In hindsight, I really should have told an artful lie. The truth didn’t make me look any better in the eyes of one of the very coolest guys I’ve ever known.

“We’re going to see the new Muppet movie.”

I slept lightly back at the hotel, fearful he might fulfill his ancient oath and slay me in my sleep.

It’s an emphatic example of just how difficult it is to have a family you love and enjoy and friends about whom you feel the same. The one group will never understand why you want to spend so much happy time with the other and the two will never fully reconcile.

It probably gives you some idea, too, of why it would be impossible for a guy like me to ever hold down a full time job.

But this weekend I got to spend a lot of time with a friend I love, and a lot of time with the family I love. So to me it was one of the best weekends of the year.

See, I love The Muppets, too.

Related . . .

America’s No. 1 party boy from America’s No. 1 party school

Let’s all America go to the movies

CDC report on binge drinking has me reevaluating binge drinking

When Facebook becomes Fakebook

My history of drinking at/near work

Grinnin' at mammogram confusion

I smiled this week at the intense reaction to the scientific study that said too frequent mammograms cause unnecessary stress and can be safely reduced.

It was a beautiful smile, too. The mostly straight ivories look like rows of surfboards left to bleach in the summer sun.

It’s a contagious sort of smile. I’ve found people nearly always smile back when I smile at them.

In fact, the only people who as a rule don’t smile back are dentists.

And that’s because my smile is pearly proof that seeing a dentist the recommended once every six months is a colossal waste of time and money.

Trust me. I’ve been to see a dentist exactly once in the past 24 years. Just once.

Like most kids, I was the child of parents who were skillfully brainwashed to believe we all needed to see a dentist once every six months.

And I must compliment the dental lobby for convincing a parade of generations that this directive came in stone from Moses. It’s just accepted wisdom.

Pity the poor podiatrist. No one ever thinks to go see him or her even once a year when you could argue that many of the nagging back infirmities that plague our elderly stem from persistent feet problem.

I did my regular dental thing until one happy 1994 night in Athens, Ohio. Me and the boys were closing up the old Nickelodeon bar on Union Street where a bunch of us were paid to inebriate our fellow Ohio University students.

Once we closed and cleaned up the joint, we’d hike up the Def Leppard and blow off steam with hootch and horseplay.

I don’t recall the insanity of the motivation, but I remember jumping up on big Bill’s back. I must have thought if I surprised the gentle giant I could gain a split second wrestling triumph over him that I’d extrapolate into a lifetime of boast about the night I slammed big Bill Morrissey down to the Nickelodeon dance floor.

My advantage lasted a nano-second. The next instant I remember was feeling a not unpleasant sensation of flight. Bill’d sent me sailing. The whole world slowed down. I’m convinced with sufficient feathering the propulsion could have sent me soaring clear past the jukebox.

Then -- damn that gravity -- I landed on my lip. I remember seeing my maxillary lateral incisor spinning out of my mouth and sashaying about 10 feet across the dance floor. It was the most soulful motion any part of me’d ever achieved on that dance floor.

The next day I went to the local dentist who gave me the sort of oral devastation Dustin Hoffman’s character underwent at the hands of a sadistic Nazi dentist (and can there be a more malevolent job description?) in the great 1976 thriller, “Marathon Man.”

It was root canal. If a woman had ever treated me as poorly as that dentist did, I’d to this day still be casting about for romance with gentle farm animals.

I vowed that very day I would never go see another dentist. To compensate, however, I’d become a fanatic about self-care. I stopped eating sweets. I began concluding every meal with a vigorous water gargle before departing the table and heading to a nearby toothbrush. And -- this is key -- I floss after anything goes in my mouth and that includes the ears and other soft nibbly parts of my dear wife.

And that’s just what I did. Around about 1994, my mother’s alarm over my dental non-conformity could no longer be ignored. To appease her, I agreed to a check-up.

After about 15 minutes of poking and prodding, the dentist said, “Your teeth are perfect. Keep doing what you’re doing.”

I’ve never met an unhappy dentist. Most look forward to retiring at about 55. Truly, they are a joyful lot and I think I alone know why.

It’s because most Americans march herd-like into their offices every six months. Once there, the dentists poke, proud, scrape, drill and nick at the integrity of even healthy teeth. Repeat this every six months and a healthy mouth will eventually need constant dentist-enriching attention.

In fact, the people I know who go to the dentist most faithfully are the ones who most need to go to the dentist.

We are a nagging nation of hypochondriacs. We believe there is a pill or potion to cure every infirmity.

If you’re convinced that yearly mammograms and those semi-annual dental visits and on and on and on will prolong your life, then go right ahead.

Me, I’ll just sit back and smile at all the commotion.

You may wonder whatever happened to that old tooth. I have no idea. I guess it just got mopped up with the rest of the mud and the blood and the beer on that long ago evening of now forgotten revelry.

Doesn’t matter. The lesson the loss taught me proved more valuable than anything the Tooth Fairy could ever bestow.